


Telefrag

by FirstSelector



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Altpower, Gen, Mover!Broadcast, Poor career decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FirstSelector/pseuds/FirstSelector
Summary: Family doesn't always give the best advice.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 220
Collections: Excitations above the snippet vacuum





	Telefrag

I didn’t cry.

Not because of the location. It was natural to cry in a graveyard, after all.

Not because of the people nearby. There were two groups: one that understood, and another that could go fuck themselves.

Not because I didn’t feel. Mom left us two years ago, and the feelings were still as raw as the day we got the call. I just got better at dealing with them. Losing her should have blunted the feelings for losing Dad, but it didn’t.

No, the only reason I didn’t cry was because I had long since run out of tears.

“Taylor,” a voice said behind me. I ignored it.

We had skipped a funeral, due to cost. Still, more people than I had expected had come to the burial to pay their respects. Dockworkers and friends all, since Dad didn’t have any living family and we were either estranged or out of contact with Mom’s. I had half-expected a nasty call from Gram, but that was apparently too low, even for her.

“Taylor,” a different voice said. I ignored that too.

I knelt down next to the headstone, running my fingers along the chiseled letters. It seemed like yesterday that Dad and I had come here to wish Mom a happy new year’s and to tell her about everything. Things at school had seemed to finally hit rock bottom before break, and for the first time in months I had finally felt the flickers of hope.

Naturally, everything had gone wrong. Repeatedly.

“Taylor, we need --”

“Shut up!” I yelled, not bothering to turn around. “Just… shut up. Let me at least have this.”

I heard some murmuring from behind me, presumably the more motherly of my two handlers chastising the socially inept one. There was actually nothing they could do to stop me from staying here as long as I wanted, or even coming to visit whenever I pleased, but the pragmatic part of my brain pointed out that antagonizing them now would just make things worse going forwards.

Not that they could get much worse, all things considered.

I heard movement behind me, and it wasn’t until the person was being accosted by my handlers that I realized that something was very, very wrong.

“Identify yourself,” Armsmaster said. Even in his ‘PRT officer’ guise, he was intimidating.

“I’m family,” a man said smoothly. His voice…

“Uncle Jacob?” I asked, jumping up and spinning around to face the newcomer. His face was shadowed in the early January evening dusk, but it was unmistakably him.

“Taylor,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry.” He stepped around Miss Militia’s outstretched arm, and I closed the remaining gap. I practically leapt into his arms, pulling him into a tight hug that he reciprocated.

I didn’t realize how starved for physical attention I was until my uncle had me in his embrace. Mom had been the touchy-feely parent, and Dad had practically shut down in the wake of her death. One of the first things to go had been the admittedly scarce physical contact we already had, and with Emma…

It was the first hug I’d had in months. I burst back into tears. Apparently I did have some left.

Uncle Jacob freed an arm to rub my back while I sobbed into his shirt. “Taylor, I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear about your father until very recently, and I came as soon as I could.”

“It’s… okay,” I hiccuped, holding him tighter. “Thank you for… for coming. I missed you so much.”

I could feel him smile where my head was buried in his shoulder. “I missed you too, little owl.”

My sobbing was accompanied by a snort when he used mom’s nickname for me. “I… she…”

“Don’t worry, Taylor, I’m here,” he said, soothingly.

We stood like that for a few minutes, me crying messily and Uncle Jacob hugging me while saying soothing words. An unexplored ocean of tears that had been refilling during this entire disaster spilled out in a flood. I cried for Mom, for Dad, for losing my best friend, for being forced into that terrible locker. For having no one who cared about me.

Eventually, I ran out of tears, stepping back from my uncle. He looked me up and down, frowning slightly to himself. “I’m glad I got here when I did,” he said quietly. “I see that you’re in a bit of a pickle.”

I paused in rubbing tears from my eyes to give him a confused glance. “Huh?”

Uncle Jacob flicked his chin over his shoulder at the two Protectorate heroes. “They’re not here for Danny,” he said, intentionally speaking a bit louder than normal. Their pre-echoes flinched a moment before their brains processed the statement, and then they flinched in real time.

“No,” I said, voice hard. “They’re not.” I gave them a frown of my own.

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” my uncle muttered.

Uncle Jacob turned to regard the two heroes, and it finally clicked what had triggered my confusion earlier. He wasn’t producing a pre-echo of his own, and he wasn’t registering to my radar sense. Some part of my brain realized that he must also be a parahuman of some sort, one that did something funny to my own abilities.

There was no way in hell I was telling the PRT.

“Taylor,” Armsmaster said. “We should return to base.”

My uncle and I traded glances. “I would like to visit with my uncle for a bit. Can I stay at home tonight? It’s not like I’ll get many more chances.”

“Staying there overnight was deemed unsafe,” Armsmaster replied, but Miss Militia put her hand on his arm.

“I think we can make an exception,” she said. Left unsaid was the inevitable PRT squad watching the house from down the street.

I rolled my eyes. “Uncle Jacob, did you walk or drive?”

“I took the bus, why?”

I offered my arm to him with a grin. “Want to get home much faster?”

He took my arm with his own smile, and ignoring my handler’s squawks of annoyance, I took a not-step. The world flickered, and we were standing in the garage of my house.

“Now _that_ is impressive,” he said, brushing his coat and looking around. “What’s your range?”

“Haven’t found a limit,” I replied, letting a hint of pride creep into my voice.

Uncle Jacob whistled appreciatively. “Is that all?”

“I also have a bit of precognitive sense for things that move, along with a ‘radar’ of sorts.” I gave him a larger smile. “Oh, and I can teleport things without going with them, but I didn’t tell the power testers about that.” Even though the latter was only line-of-sight, I suspected it wasn’t limited by the Manton Effect. I knew it wasn’t stopped by objects already being at the destination.

He barked out a laugh at my admission. “Impressive indeed. I take it that the PRT press-ganged you, given that the Protectorate invaded your father’s burial.”

I started walking towards the door into the house. “Yeah. They came by the hospital after…”

“After?” Uncle Jacob asked, voice suddenly serious. “Hospital?”

I poured a glass of water for myself from the kitchen, and then another for my uncle when he asked, and I led him into the front room. Seeing the walls relieved of their pictures and the bookcases empty of books nearly set me to crying again. Things were being moved into my new apartment by the PRT, and several half-full Tinkertech boxes sat open in the room next to us. The pictures and albums had gone first, and now I was deciding what else to save.

A framed photo from a few years back caught my eye. It had been buried in a box downstairs, so it had escaped the initial picture packing spree. Me, mom, dad, Uncle Jacob, and his adopted daughter. “Where’s Riley?”

“Staying with friends,” he replied. “Didn’t want her involved in this.” I nodded absently, my eyes not leaving the box. Underneath the photo were a few dresses of mom’s, folded to the best of my ability. I wasn’t very good at it.

My uncle’s voice pulled me out of a sudden bout of reminiscing. “Why were you in the hospital, Taylor?”

I moved to sit down next to my uncle on the couch, and after a few false starts I managed to tell him the story. About Emma, her betrayal, the bullying. I told him about the school’s refusal to do anything, up to and including the locker. His face became more and more dark while I explained.

“And of course, the only time anyone started caring was _after_ Armsmaster came into my hospital room and made me confirm, in front of my dad, that I did in fact teleport myself to the emergency room from the inside of my locker,” I spat. “Suddenly, everyone wanted to know what happened and why and how.”

I took an angry sip from my water and ignored the dangerous look on Uncle Jacob’s face. “So then it was either crippling hospital bills or joining the Wards so that I could have the privilege of being helped by Panacea. Dad might have forced me in anyways, but they literally _had the paperwork with them at the hospital_.”

“Then you know what happened next?” I yelled, standing up to pace around the room. Uncle Jacob’s eyes followed me the entire time. “I get there, and fucking Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker! Turns out they don’t actually care that much about me, because when I went to talk to the Director, she blew me off. ‘Not enough evidence’ or some bullshit.”

My rage abruptly left me, and I sat down on the floor. “Then… then Dad got killed in that accident, and because I’m underage I was made a ward of the state. So even if I wanted to leave, I can’t.” I thought I was out of tears, but apparently not. “I’m trapped.”

“Taylor,” my uncle said soothingly. “You’re never trapped. Not with your power. And it just sounds like you just need… options. And, frankly, family. You may feel alone, but I assure you that you are not.”

“Well, you’re here now,” I muttered. “What should I do?”

Uncle Jacob seemed to consider that for a moment. “Normally, I would offer to bring you along with me when I leave,” he began, but I cut him off.

“What about the PRT?”

He seemed to consider his words. “I am not overly concerned about them, and neither should you be. At least, apart from the fact that they will not willingly let go of you, now that they have a handhold.”

“But…”

“Taylor,” he said, leaning down towards me with a smile. “What, exactly, can they do to you?”

“I…” His words struck a sudden chord in my mind. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Can they stop you?”

I shook my head. “No, not really.”

“Do you really think that they care about you?”

I hesitated before replying, but any response I might have made was cut off by the sudden appearance of spotlights outside the house, along with flashing blue-and-red. “This is the PRT!” an amplified voice called. “We have the house surrounded! Release the girl, or we will resort to force!”

Uncle Jacob sighed. “Well, this has been a delightful trip,” he said lightly. “But, unfortunately I need to be going.”

“Huh?” I asked, head darting around in confusion. What the hell was going on?

He gave me an appraising look. “Taylor…” he started, but suddenly the door exploded inwards with a crash. The pre-echo of Armsmaster’s halberd crashed through the door, followed by the implement itself. Uncle Jacob grabbed my hand and fixed me with a piercing gaze. “Take us away?” he asked quickly.

I nodded, too shocked to do anything else, and suddenly we were back in the graveyard.

Before I could question whatever just happened, my uncle gave me a hug and a smile. “Thank you for that, Taylor. Do you have any compunctions about lying to the PRT?” He couldn’t see my smirk, but the accompanying snort was answer enough. “Good, tell them we came back here, and I left, okay?”

“Yeah… sure,” I said, refusing to let go of the hug. “When will I see you again? And why were they after you? Or me? What the hell?”

“You’ll see me rather sooner than I was expecting. I’ll explain it to you then, alright?” He pulled out of my arms, but kept his hands on my shoulders and squeezed.

“I guess,” I muttered. “Fucking PRT, they ruin everything.”

Uncle Jacob gave me a knowing smile. “I love you Taylor. Stay safe until I see you again.” He gave me another hug, and I teared up a bit. “You’re not trapped.”

“I love you too,” I said quietly. He pulled out of the hug, and I watched him walk away into the evening darkness. He vanished around the corner, and not two minutes later my Wards-issued cell phone rang.

“Taylor?” Miss Militia asked, her voice panicked. “Where are you? Are you alright?”

“Yes? Uncle Jacob wanted to come back to the graveyard. He just left a few minutes ago.”

“Thank gods,” she hissed. “Please come back to HQ immediately.”

I sighed internally, then took a not-step. I appeared in my quarters in my Wards room. “Ok, I’m here,” I said into my phone.

“Oh,” she said. “Right. Remain on base tonight, there was a… situation at your house.”

“Fine. Can I go? Today has really sucked.”

I could practically see the false concern in her eyes. “Yes, and I’m sorry again.”

I hung up on her.

\---

“Are you sure you’re okay to be out patrolling, Flicker?”

I turned and gave Gallant a flat look. It was just the two of us today on a boring Boardwalk PR exercise, but at least it got me out of my room and doing something other than thinking about last week. No one in any position of authority would tell me exactly what had happened with my uncle, but from what I could gather they had grown suspicious because he had simply appeared out of nowhere and ran off with me.

Well, joke’s on them, because I could show them photos from my childhood with Uncle Jacob alongside Mom and Dad. Armsmaster and Piggot had been surprised, to say the least. As expected, there was no apology or explanation for their confusion. They simply had me finish packing the house up and then swept the whole confrontation under the rug.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I replied automatically.

“Well if you need to talk…”

I guffawed. “What’s the point? No one gives a damn about me except to make sure that I’m tied up in as much Wards red tape as possible.”

Gallant shook his head. “Language, we’re in public.”

I didn’t need to look up from the sidewalk to know that he was overreacting. There were people around, sure, but it was the end of January. The weather in the Bay was nice, but the usual throngs of people on the Boardwalk were inside keeping warm. There were only four people within about ten meters of us, and according to my radar, they were too far away to hear my griping.

We walked for another two blocks in silence before encountering something that actually required our attention.

“Mommy, look! It’s Gallant and Flicker!”

I plastered a fake smile on my face before looking up at the girl running towards us, preceded by her moving pre-echo. She couldn’t have been older than nine or ten years old, and she was rushing towards us with the reckless abandon of kids with their heroes. Literally. Her amused mom was two steps behind.

“Hello!” I said, forcing my voice to be cheery. The girl let out an amazed squeak, her hands coming up to her face in excitement.

The girl turned around and gestured to her mom. “Mom, come on!” Just as she looked back towards us, I activated my power and teleported directly behind her. “Hey! Where did Flicker go?”

“Turn around,” Gallant said with a smile.

When she did, the girl squeaked again. “Wow! That’s so cool!” We chatted with the girl and her mother for a few minutes, answering all of her questions and even signing a scrap of paper from her mom’s purse.

As soon as they were gone, the fake everything melted from me. I even sagged a little bit. Gallant looked up and down, and I snapped at him, “What?”

“I’m just worried about you,” he said carefully.

I rolled my eyes behind my visor. “I’m sure. Ready to keep moving?”

The rest of the patrol was uneventful, which was maybe to be expected on these PR runs. We did a lot of pointless nodding and waving. I showed my powers off a bit more, to much excitement from the civilians and irritation from me. Gallant spent a bunch of our free time chatting with Vista, who was running the console. They tried to draw me into the conversation, but I didn’t have anything to say.

When we got back, I took advantage of one of the few good things about HQ: endless hot water. I rarely spent more time than was necessary at HQ, instead using my personal quarters as an easy way to teleport from my apartment to base. The PRT was not pleased with that habit, but they didn’t have a good way to stop me. I flat out told them I wasn’t going to spend any more time around Sophia than was necessary.

Once my skin was too pruney to justify remaining in the shower, I jumped out and pulled on some civilian clothes after drying myself. I refused to blow dry my hair, given that it was the only nice thing about my body. I fetched a book from a small stack I maintained in my personal quarters, then found a comfy seat in the common area and draped my damp hair over the back.

“Good shower?” Missy asked from another couch.

“Mhm.”

“Your hair is so pretty. I’m super jealous,” she said.

My radar sense told me someone had opened the door, but not who. She immediately made it clear. “Jealous of _Hebert_? You’ll grow out of it.”

I didn’t bother replying or even acknowledging Sophia’s presence. I simply activated my power, teleporting myself onto the couch in my little studio apartment. Today wasn’t good, but it was okay, and putting up with Sophia for more than three seconds would ruin what little brightness I had.

Ten minutes later I got a call from Carlos. I sighed heavily, then answered. “What?”

“Hey Taylor,” he said politely. “We were looking for you, training exercise starts in twenty five minutes.”

“I’ll be there. Is there anything else?”

He seemed taken aback by my abrupt tone. “No, I guess not.”

I hung up and read my book for the next twenty four minutes.

\---

The first time I got to really stretch the bounds of my powers was when the Simurgh attacked Canberra, Australia. The PRT sent me a picture of the staging room, letting me teleport there as easily as I could go anywhere else. I teleported there just as a check, picking up an armband and registering as a teleporter. Then I jumped back to the PRT lobby, only to discover it full of capes.

The local Protectorate was here almost in its entirety, along with more than half of the Empire and most of New Wave. As soon as I appeared, every eye latched on to me.

“Uh, hi,” I said, lamely.

To my surprise, no one laughed. “How does your power work?” Kaiser asked, deadly serious.

“I can take five or six at a time. Just be touching me and we’ll go.”

“Good,” Miss Militia said. “Let’s get moving.”

Six jumps back and forth brought the Brockton Bay team. I was sent another picture, but this time I was in San Francisco. I explained my power again, then teleported everyone gathered there as well.

This repeated for Cleveland, Austin, Las Vegas, and Atlanta, and by time I brought the last group through I nearly fell over from shock. To my surprise, I was caught by a woman in a grey costume.

“Acceptable for your first time,” Cinereal said. “The triage tent should have Tinkertech stimulants to keep you awake.”

I gaped at her for a moment before she turned away and strode off to the actual staging ground. A crack from behind me signaled Strider bringing in another round, and I stepped out of the way to let them pass.

“What should I do now?” I asked out loud.

My phone beeped an instant later, showing me a picture of the triage area. I jumped there out of reflex, only to find myself surrounded by healing capes.

“Flicker?” Panacea asked. I knew her voice from school, though we were hardly friends.

That last teleport really did me in, and I sat down on the ground, hard. “Yes?”

I was immediately surrounded by pre-echoes and then capes, and I felt someone poke at the exposed skin under my visor. “Well, you’re okay physically, if a bit tired. Want me to fix that?”

“Sure,” I wheezed. Then warmth started spreading through me, pushing the exhaustion away but leaving me with a mild headache.

“Can’t do anything about the head,” Panacea said. “Thinker headache, it looks like.”

“Dunno, I’ve never pushed my power this hard,” I said. “Thanks for your help. What should I be doing now?”

The various healers exchanged glances. “Well,” Othala said, “You would be a huge boon to search and rescue, since you can teleport people directly here.”

Armsmaster’s description of the explosives embedded into the armband jumped to the front of my mind. “I just can’t stay in too long, right?”

 _“Flicker, please report to the staging area,”_ my armband chirped.

“Well, good luck,” Panacea said.

\---

I didn’t make it back to my apartment after the fight. I didn’t even make it back to the Wards room. Luckily, my last jump brought me, Panacea, Armsmaster, and Lady Photon back to Brockton Bay, because I collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion and pain immediately afterwards.

The fight was horrible. I spent fifteen of my twenty minutes actively retrieving fallen capes from inside the Simurgh’s scream zone, and then another hour and a half looking for capes elsewhere. I got blood everywhere and had to see far more injuries than I could possibly count, but I also saved several dozen people. After the third cape I recognized was thanking me profusely for saving them, my brain sort of shut down and stopped processing things.

Panacea topped me off twice more, and by time I was bringing people home, I had a terrible migraine. I managed to power through it to take the groups back to Austin and Cleveland, though the return trips took fewer jumps due to casualties. A short break followed while Panacea finished what healing she could, and now I was home.

It wasn’t until the press conference that I realized how utterly fucked I was. The first hint should have been that I was the only Ward in attendance.

On the face of it, Piggot’s speech was very nice. Despite this having been my first Endbringer fight, I had made massive contributions. There were not that many long range teleporters that could bring other people, and apparently I had sped up our response time by a significant fraction. Then she talked about my S&R efforts, since getting people out of the scream range was the most important aspect and I had excelled wildly at that.

The undertext was obvious once I thought about it: I was useful, and they were willing to heap praise on me as long as I continued to be useful to them. The lack of praise for Panacea spoke volumes about how self-centered the PRT was.

“And I want to _gurgle_ ” Piggot’s speech cut off, and I looked up with horror to see that her throat had been neatly severed. Her head fell to the ground with a _splat_ , and her body crumpled a moment later.

The crowd immediately started running, followed by a series of shrieks from the reporters nearest the door. Armsmaster leapt from his chair, halberd at the ready, followed shortly by the other Protectorate members. The Deputy Director and other civilians seemed frozen with fear.

“Jack Slash,” Armsmaster hissed. “We knew you were coming back.”

“Well of course,” a smooth voice said, and my heart tried to hammer its way through my chest. “I told my niece as much when I was here for the funeral. It was very rude for you to interrupt our time together.”

Several concerned expressions turned my way, but I barely saw them. “You’re outnumbered, Jack,” Armsmaster declared. “Leave now and --”

“Taylor.”

I looked up. “Hi, Uncle Jacob.”

“Why don’t you come down here for a moment?” he said warmly. I teleported off the stage, putting myself between him and the rest of the heroes. I didn’t make any threatening moves, and he smiled at me. “Oh, how _heroic_ of you. I knew Annette raised you right.”

“Jack --” Armsmaster said, waving his halberd threateningly.

“We’re having a family moment here, can’t you see that?” he chided. He turned back to me. “I have someone else who’s been missing you, too.”

At that, a short blonde girl covered in a bloodstained dress darted in from the hallway. She ran up to me and launched herself, her pre-echo barely giving me just enough warning to catch her. “Taylor!” she yelled. “It’s been so long!”

“Hi Riley,” I squawked, partially out of surprise and partially due to her compressing my chest. I didn’t miss the sheer horror on the faces of the surviving Protectorate and PRT members. Their wide eyes and flapping jaws were dead giveaways for their actual feelings.

It did not take me very long to figure out her identity, too.

“I’m sorry about Uncle Danny,” she said.

I managed not to sob. “Thank you.”

Uncle Jacob looked me up and down while Riley continued to hug me with four limbs. “Taylor, you did not do a good job keeping yourself safe. You let them drag you to that Endbringer fight.”

“She was being a hero!” Miss Militia retorted.

“Ah yes, heroes,” my uncle said. “Did you take any of the other Wards? Or just my ever-so-useful niece?”

“She volunteered,” Armsmaster started, but Uncle Jacob steamrolled him.

“Of her own free will, I’m sure,” Uncle Jacob said. “What did they offer you, Taylor? Did they insinuate that they would finally take your complaints seriously?”

I glanced at the heroes, Riley still clinging to my chest “Yeah, actually, they did.”

“We would never --” Armsmaster tried again, but Uncle Jacob cut him off.

“Don’t try to deny it. Your PRT exists purely to control parahumans, to make sure that they go willingly into the maws of the beast. To die for a system that fails them daily. And they’re willing to overlook anything -- including attempted murder -- to ensure that they keep that control.” Uncle Jacob flipped his knife around idly. “At least I’m honest about what I do.”

“Honesty is important,” Riley declared, still attached to me. She was a very enthusiastic hugger.

“Right you are,” my uncle said. “In the spirit of honesty, why don’t we play a game? You answer me one question honestly, and I’ll do the same.”

“What do you want?” Armsmaster growled.

“To see my niece, and make sure she isn’t being too badly mistreated by your organization,” he replied. “My turn. Taylor, did you know that they filed the paperwork to ensure you were made a ward of the state before your father’s body had even begun cooling?”

I set Riley down very carefully, then turned slowly to face Armsmaster. “How dare you,” I spat.

“Flicker --”

Uncle Jacob gave the heroes a wide smile. “You know, Taylor, isn’t it strange how hard they work to ‘protect’ you, but your dad didn’t get anything? Where is the ‘justice’ that they are so concerned with?”

“Don’t listen to him, Taylor,” Miss Militia tried.

“What? Did you also stop the investigation when Sophia tried to kill me? Is that why Piggot would never agree to look at it again?” I snarled. “Am I just a tool to you? Do you only care about me because of my power?”

“We didn’t --”

I screamed, then dodged twice when both Armsmaster and Miss Militia fired something out of their respective weapons. My uncle’s knife hand swept out, severing Miss Militia’s head from her shoulders. I caught his hand on the backswing, then grabbed Riley with my other hand and teleported us away.

\---

We went back to the Bay after the next Endbringer attack. Conveniently, Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay. I didn’t help with that fight, but we did pick up a new member in the rather amusing aftermath and she convinced me to go to the following attacks. Some sort of lingering hero complex, which I could empathize with.

“Ready yet?” Amy asked.

“Almost done, big sis!” I looked away while Riley did _something_ on her lab bench. Amy and I were chomping at the bit to get going, so we had eventually cornered Riley in her lab. She fiddled for a few moments longer, then put the thing in her pocket and grabbed my hand. “Ok!”

“You three be safe!” my uncle called.

Our arrival at the staging area was accompanied by the usual shouts of alarm and undisguised hatred. It had taken some negotiation (and murder) on all sides to convince the powers that be to put our kill orders on hold during Endbringer fights, because in the end two healers and a teleporter were too useful to ignore.

Irony was delicious. Especially when I teleported rebar through people’s mouths and out the back of their heads.

I picked up an armband from a very displeased looking Kid Win, rolling my eyes when he mouthed ‘traitor’ at me. I pressed the buttons and said, “Telefrag.” Behind me I heard “Pandemic” and “Bonesaw.”

Riley had calmed down considerably in the year or so since both Amy and I joined up. People sometimes called us the “gentle” third of the Nine, which suited me just fine but made my uncle all sorts of angry. It was still a bit of a sticking point, despite me single-handedly requiring PRT policy to no longer permit video conference meetings. Losing three quarters of the directorate was a real wake-up call for them.

Amy gave me a hug, followed by Riley. “Don’t die out there,” Amy said with a smile.

“Or at least die nearby so I can have your body,” Riley piped up. Nearby, I heard another cape gag.

My phone beeped, displaying an image, and I was gone.


End file.
